{"id":872446,"date":"2026-04-23T04:45:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T04:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/872446\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T04:45:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T04:45:22","slug":"2026-nfl-draft-coverage-and-mock-roundup-plus-taking-4-draft-simulators-for-a-spin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/872446\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 NFL Draft coverage and mock roundup, plus taking 4 draft simulators for a spin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>(Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Allen Park \u2014 Mercifully, the 2026 NFL draft has arrived. <\/p>\n

After weeks of speculation \u2014 the debating and dissection of hundreds of prospects as potential fits \u2014 the Detroit Lions will leave the weekend with more than a dozen new additions to the roster. That\u2019s assuming you factor in pending agreements with undrafted free agents. <\/p>\n

Detroit will enter the draft holding nine selections, including seven on Day 3. As a handy refresher, here are those scheduled picks: <\/p>\n

Round 1, No. 17<\/p>\n

Round 2, No. 50<\/p>\n

Round 4, No. 118<\/p>\n

Round 4, No. 128 (from Houston, David Montgomery trade)<\/p>\n

Round 5, No. 155<\/p>\n

Round 5, No. 181 (compensatory) <\/p>\n

Round 6, No. 205 (from Jacksonville, Tim Patrick trade)<\/p>\n

Round 6, No. 213 (from Jacksonville, Isaac TeSlaa trade)<\/p>\n

Round 7 (from Cleveland, Za\u2019Darius Smith trade)<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s next-to-no guarantee Detroit will remain in those slots. Notably, general manager Brad Holmes has executed at least one pick swap each of the past five drafts, including 13 deals the past three years.<\/p>\n

So, yeah, expect some movement. The bigger question is whether Holmes will follow his longstanding trend of more frequently using assets to move up the board, as opposed to moving down to secure additional bites at the apple.<\/p>\n

In terms of our draft coverage, here are some links to peruse if you\u2019re looking to kill some time before Round 1 kicks off at 8 p.m. Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Obviously, the arrival of the draft means a final wave of mock drafts. Let\u2019s take a glance at where some of the top analysts have landed with Detroit\u2019s first-round pick. <\/p>\n

Spoiler: There\u2019s a theme. <\/p>\n

Monroe Freeling, OT, Georgia <\/p>\n

Kadyn Proctor, OT, Alabama<\/p>\n

Blake Miller, OT, Clemson<\/p>\n

Max Iheanachor, OT, Arizona State<\/p>\n

Spencer Fano, OT, Utah<\/p>\n

Olaivavega Ioane, G, Penn State<\/p>\n

I skipped doing a mock draft this year. I figured, there are enough of them in the world, no one needs my opinions about what the Titans might do with the fourth pick or the Cowboys at 12.<\/p>\n

Still, with a little more depth of knowledge built through studying these prospects the past several weeks, it couldn’t hurt to pull some levers on a few of the popular draft simulators, just to see what kind of classes I could cobble together for the Lions.<\/p>\n

For brevity \u2014 and sanity \u2014 we\u2019re going to limit these four projections to four rounds and avoid trades, offering some analysis of the different approaches. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Getty Images) Allen Park \u2014 Mercifully, the 2026 NFL draft has arrived. After weeks of speculation \u2014 the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[146,113,2506,7,147,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-872446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-detroit","9":"tag-detroit-lions","10":"tag-detroitlions","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-lions","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116452205409466103","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}